We don't need to be this tragedy

The tragedy of the commons is common, particularly concerning fish. We have our own North Atlantic cod collapse to reflect on. Government scientist, the late Dr. Ransome Myers told DFO, his employer, that the cod that were being caught were too small to have spawned and thus were being fished to extinction. DFO told him to be quiet. He quit, the cod went commercially extinct and the Hibernia Oil wells went on to the Grand Banks. Tens of thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars were taken from eastern Canada. The earth lost one of most generous food supplies and government said, here have some salmon farms, they are good for you.

In 1989, my home town of Echo Bay in the Broughton Archipelago, was thriving on tourism, fishing, and logging when the provincial government came to town and said here have some fish farms they are good for you. Completely naive we said, “ok,” and went about welcoming the industry. My 70 year old fishman neighbour, Bill Proctor helped them pick their first 5 sites. Billy knew what they needed to grow fish, but he also knew where the wild fish run and he kept the two seperate. These five sites are still successfully growing farm fish, but the industry was greedy. They took Billy’s sites, and then grabbed 24 more sites deaf to the protests by local people. They plopped their cages right over the prawn fishing grounds families in my town depended on. Too bad, so sad, no compensation, nothing! Even DFO officers resisted many sites. The provincial Ministry of environment resisted Atlantic salmon. But the fish farmers got everything they asked for including sites designated farm-free by the Province….. the same agency granting the leases.

In 1991, the Norwegian Parliamentary Committee on the Environment is quoted in the Hansard. “We are very strict…. Therefore some of the fish farmers went to Canada. They said we want bigger fish farms.; we can do as we like. That is a very hot subject, I think.”

This was a read flag warning in the plainest possible language but our federal government ignored it. In 1993, the Pacific Fishery Regulations, exempted provincially licensed aquaculture from ALL the fishing regulations in Canada. I am testing the mettle of this exemption in a Fisheries charge pending against Marine Harvest for unlicensed possession of wild salmon in their packing vessel. Are the three Norwegian companies that are BC’s salmon farming industry really allowed to have under-sized, wild salmon with no licence, quota or fine?

Recently I attended two meetings of Fraser sockeye scientists. They say something has changed in the past decade making it impossible to predict how many sockeye will return. They say there is a new variable that is not being factored in. They say all the Fraser sockeye we know migrate via the inside waters of Vancouver Island are in steep decline. There are 60 Norwegian salmon farms on this route. But they say the one Fraser sockeye run observed migrating to sea around the southern end of Vancouver Island, the Harrison stock, are actually increasing in productivity There are no salmon farms on this route. The 2009 Harrison sockeye were twice as numerous as forecast. Similarly, nearby sockeye runs from west Vancouver Island and the US that did not get near salmon farms also flourished last year…… Flourished!

The tragedy of the commons is common, but we don’t have to be THIS tragedy. For anyone who is reading the signs it is clear, holding salmon in cages is shattering biological laws with social repercussion. Feedlots intensify disease, breed drug resistance and must be isolated from the public resource. We know this about chickens, we know this about pigs and cows, but we pretend to forget when it comes to fish. Why?

Why indeed. Well, wild salmon are inconvenient to all who would dam BC rivers, ship oil through wild and treacherous coastal waterways, log across streams, dump mine tailings and raw sewage. Wild salmon are inconvenient to politicians and it’s politicians who have made one bad decision after the next and driven BC into conflict over this. Many have tried individually to turn this tide but they have failed. I have failed.

This is typical of human society. Only the people can fix a mess like this. There are good solid solutions: Apply the laws of Canada fair and sqare on this Norwegian industry. If they don’t meet the test, they should gracefully bow out. Government must protect the families who now depend on salmon farms because government caused this collision. Invest in and support a land-based Canadian aquaculture industry. Such an industry could make Canada a world leader in technology development and create jobs and money that stays home. Renovate DFO. When you have senior scientists such as Dr. Larry Dill speaking at public rallies calling DFO corrupt, you can know there is substance to the charge. Empty the Ottawa offices, and open ones in BC. Harness the people already working to keep salmon alive in community groups BC wide. Use the wealth of knowledge we possess to use the powerful life-cycle of salmon to allow them to restore themselves.

How do we make this happen? Every person in Canada who wants wild salmon must stand where Ottawa can see you. For this reason I am walking/boating 500km the length of Vancouver Island starting April 23rd and arriving at the Parliament buildings on My 8th to be met by federal MPs. We call it the GET OUT Migration. People get out of you chairs, salmon farms get out of the ocean.

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